Like a phoenix

[loaded_march]

Since my last post, I got swamped at work, which, as usual, leaves me wiped out when I get home.  The amount of energy I have left is based on accrued interest, and I'm owing a fair bit to the pool, so I stare at my computer for a while, click a few links, and go to bed.

Very recently, there was a lovely lull at work, where I said something I haven't said in years -- I'm bored.  Not the bored where my job was dull and unengaging (which it isn't even on a bad day), but the bored where I've run out of work and I'm not entirely sure what I should do with myself.  Huzzah!  I get to go home with a surplus of energy to pay back the energy fund, and maybe get some writing done.  I know I owe a gluten-free, refined sugar-free brownie recipe, which I will post as soon as... well.  As soon as I get off my damn ass and get the hastily-jotted recipe card out of the tin.

But, yeah.  I can't have nice things.  My computer died.

Again.

That makes it twice in less than six months, and three times in just over a year.  In the last two crashes, I lost substantial chunks of writing stuffs, and, of course, the backups failed both times.  I even used different backup strategies!

Anyway, the frequency of the crashes and the symptoms were similar enough that I did the only thing possible: I bought a new hard drive, took my laptop apart, and replaced it.  I reinstalled most of the software I had before and from an old, old backup, have most of my files, but I'm sad to say that I lost four months of original fiction and fanfiction that wasn't also copied to my thumb drive.

Which was a depressing amount.

The long and short of it is that, after a period of mourning (and reorganizing my files into something that didn't look like I just shoved everything in the same folder and called it good), I wrote 3K of what might possibly be a Big Bang fic for aftercamlann.  I'm testing to see if it has legs before I sign up, though.

How has everyone been?

Comments

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea about reviewing the service contract. Another option is, well, I suppose I could use my Google Drive, but I've never been comfortable with that, either!

Not just lately, I'm afraid. I have a box of hard drives that have pooched in one way or another. One of them dates back to the era of the parallel port connections -- does that date me? In any case I don't think I've had a hard drive that's lasted more than a year or two before it stands up, waves with a psychotic glint in its eye, and dies.

[amalthia]

I've been replacing my hard drives about every 3 years, but that's because the portable hard drives are becoming more affordable and the last time I replaced them was to upgrade to USB 3.0 connections.

I have a box of hard drives too, some of them date back to late 90s early 2000s. The hard drives are the one thing I don't tend to give away because I had data on them.

[loaded-march.livejournal.com]

I wish I could make it to the 3 year mark just once... *dreamy sigh*

But, yes, I don't give away my hard drives either. I really should recycle, but I'd rather make sure the data is unrecoverable first. A bit hard considering some of the hard drives will no longer talk to my computers, so, yeah, well. I'll take them apart eventually.